Trita Parsi was careful, he wants the actual text before judging, but he flagged the collision immediately.
Netanyahu's framing is that Israel stays in southern Lebanon as long as Hezbollah is undisarmed, and crucially, that it's "none of Iran's business."
Yet the MOU says nothing about disarming Hezbollah and explicitly hands Iran a role in guaranteeing Lebanon's sovereignty.
Two documents, two contradictory criteria for when Israeli troops leave.
Trita's read is that the speed and force of Israel's interpretation tells you how cornered Netanyahu is at home.
The thread that made the whole conversation worth it was historical.
Trita walked through how Israel and Iran were quiet allies until 1991, and how the instant Saddam fell and the USSR collapsed, Israel suddenly recast Iran as the existential enemy out of nowhere.
He argues the exact same manufacture is happening now with Turkey.
No Holocaust denial, no severed recognition, an embassy still open in Tel Aviv, and yet Israeli ministers are invoking "the Ottoman Empire" and calling Erdogan the most dangerous man in the region.
His point: the enemy gets chosen by who can challenge Israeli dominance, then the narrative is built backward.
His larger claim is the one that stings most in Israel right now. Far from the victory it expected, Israel may emerge the biggest loser of this war, re-contained and pushed back toward its pre-1991 isolation while Iran gets contained too.
On the Mojtaba question, Trita wouldn't call an Israeli assassination attempt unlikely if they had his location, though he framed the desperation, not certainty, as the driver.
@tparsi
